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I’m often asked whether blogging is really a necessary part of running a business. This question is most often asked by small business owners who simply don’t have the time or skills to regularly create high-quality content. And even if they did? They wouldn’t have a clue what to write about.

As a business owner who has built a successful business in large part thanks to blogging and content publication, I’ve seen firsthand the difference it can make in terms of search visibility, leads, and sales. I’m a huge advocate of investing heavily in a content publication strategy, and that strategy begins with the company blog.

Still on the fence about blogging for your business? This article will consider 10 of the top benefits of blogging on your website. But before we dig in, I wanted to address an important question at the outset:

Does my blog have to be hosted on my business website?

In short, yes. As you’ll see as we cover the top benefits below, hosting your blog on your business site is important, as hosting it elsewhere eliminates many of the benefits of blogging. Some businesses prefer, either because of cost or for simplicity’s sake, to use a free blogging platform like WordPress.com or Weebly.com. This often results in blog domains such as [companyname].wordpress.com. While hosting a blog independent of your business site is better than not having one at all, you’ll see that many of the benefits below can only be achieved if your blog is hosted on your primary domain (i.e., www.yoursite.com/blog).

Now, without further ado, the top 10 benefits of blogging on your website!

1. Increases search engine traffic

In terms of search engine rankings, I like to think of blogging as fishing. The more hooks you have in the water, the more likely you are to catch a fish. In the same way, as you add more content to your site, more pages from your domain become indexed in search engines. This improves organic search visibility and increases website traffic.